It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, April 12, 2023
Iranian Pensioners Stage Protests Over Poor Living Conditions
Retirees protest in the Iranian city of Shush on April 9.
Iranian pensioners staged protests in more than a dozen cities across Iran, demanding higher pensions amid soaring prices. Protests were reported on April 9 in Tehran, Ahvaz, Mashhad, Isfahan, Arak, Qom, Shush, Tabriz, and several other cities where pensioners complained about their poor living conditions and chanted anti-government slogans. Labor protests in Iran have been on the rise in response to declining living standards, wage arrears, and a lack of insurance support.
China Calls Report About Spy Post on Myanmar Island ‘Nonsense’
Bloomberg News Mon, April 10, 2023
(Bloomberg) -- China has hit back at a report that India confronted Myanmar in recent months with intelligence showing that Beijing is providing help building a surveillance post on a remote island in the Bay of Bengal.
“The relevant report is sheer nonsense,” the Foreign Ministry in Beijing said Monday in response to a question from Bloomberg News on the WeChat social media app.
Indian government representatives at various levels have shared satellite imagery with Myanmar counterparts that they said depicted Chinese workers helping to construct what appears to be a listening post on the Coco Islands in the Indian Ocean, said officials, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive information.
A spokesman for Myanmar’s ruling State Administration Council earlier called the allegation that China was building the facility in the islands absurd.
Shafaq News/ On Monday, state media reported that at least six people were killed in a mine explosion in southern Syria.
The Syrian News Agency, SANA, said that the explosion hit civilians on their way to hunt truffles in the countryside, noting that the accident was caused by a landmine planted by ISIS in Deir Ez-Zor Province, in the south of the country. The area was a former stronghold of the militants.
Yesterday, Sunday, SANA reported that six people - also on their way to search for truffles - were killed by an anti-tank mine left behind by ISIS in the desert of the eastern countryside of Homs.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated the death toll on Sunday at nine people.
The Observatory said that the incident raised the number of civilians reportedly killed this year due to the explosion of mines and other explosive objects left over from the war to 139, including 30 children.
Last February, ISIS sleeper cells attacked workers collecting truffles near the central city of Sukhna, killing at least 53 people, mostly workers and several Syrian government security forces.
Truffle hunting is a popular activity in some parts of Syria. Many Syrians, including women and children, forage for desert truffles, which are in season from February to April, to sell between $5 and $10 in a country where the average monthly salary is around $18.
The Syrian desert is renowned for producing some of the best quality truffles in the world.
Africa: Why Instituting Longer Paternity Leave in Africa Is Not Simple
The push for longer paternity leave speaks to how kin networks locally and around Africa have broken down in the demographic, sociological and economic changes that characterise modern society
But given the level of development in much of Africa, instituting paternity leave may not be quite so simple. Before we see why, however, let us start from the beginning.
The kin networks are extended family institutions in many African communities that provide a social security system, including for child care. You might still find such networks in rural areas.
When a child is born, for example, members of the extended family such as mothers-in-law or sisters-in-law and even neighbours assist in caring for the newborn baby and the nursing mother.
They share the emotional and physical burden that a nursing mother goes through during the early period of childrearing.
This however doesn't tend to work very well nowadays, especially in urban settings. This is not only because many in the towns are disconnected from their extended families but the demands of employment mean that people are tied to their work in the formal and informal sectors of the economy.
But the real issue is unpaid work, where mothers, including working mothers, for example, are left to run the home and take care of the children including the newborns, often with little support from the fathers.
Our governments are, of course, seized of this fact. Except that while maternity leave for women is up to 12 weeks or more, paternity leave for new fathers is between one and five days in the vast majority of countries in the continent.
Those with longer include Zambia with seven days paternity leave, and ten days in Cameroon, South Africa and Seychelles. In Burkina Faso, the leave is 20 days.
In the East African Community, the leave is three days in Tanzania, two days in DR Congo and four days each in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. In Kenya and South Sudan, the leave is two weeks.
Aside from the benefits the advocates of longer paternity leave cite such as fathers supporting both mother and infant at their most vulnerable, studies show the provision of paternity leave can improve women's chances in paid employment.
One example of this is where it may change employer attitudes. For instance, if a particular position requires investment in job training, employers have been known to discriminate against women, anticipating frequent absence due to childbirth and child-rearing activities.
However, if paternity leave allows men to spend more time outside employment, assuming considerable uptake of paternity leave, this may limit discrimination against women.
If there are clear benefits, what are the barriers?
To take the case of Rwanda, men advocates cite, among others, maternal "gate-keeping" as an important barrier to the involvement of men in caregiving activities.
Another is the limited policy and legislative environment and the primacy of a patriarchal culture that dictates the division of labour between mothers and fathers.
In concrete terms, to quote one often-cited study by Action Aid Rwanda, women in rural areas spend up to 7 hours a day on unpaid care work while men do around 1 to 3 hours a day.
The lopsidedness of this division of labour clearly needs to be addressed.
However, it may seem that paternity leave as a possible solution is not quite so simple.
Take the example of Uganda, as described in an analysis under the global policy forum OECD. The four days of paternity leave, as per Ugandan law, apply to the formal sector which employs less than 8 per cent of the working-age population. This in effect means it covers only a small population of employed fathers.
Furthermore, and this is not just in Uganda but in countries in the region and across Africa, there are no institutions to enforce the leave.
The other concern similar to that expressed by the Rwandan advocates, the four days are too short to lead to care equality.
In Uganda, however, most men in the formal sector rarely use them.
Also, as in Rwanda, there is limited awareness of the need for and entitlement to paternity leave.
The Uganda situation is reflective of much of Africa. Thus the analysis concludes that paternity leave for economies with high informality and institutional gaps in enforcement is unrealistic.
Therefore, African governments, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, should invest in the supply side of gender-sensitive infrastructure to ease the care work burden.
Such infrastructure includes early childhood development centres, play parks, public transport with priority areas for mothers and fathers with children and breastfeeding centres.
These should be affordable, accessible and non-discriminatory. In the long term, they might do more for gender parity than paternity leave.
QUACKS
Indian health and wellness influencers must now display their qualification
Many Indians have reported being duped by social media endorsements
The Indian government is set to make the disclosure of qualifications a must for social media influencers endorsing health and wellness-related products and practices. This must be done in an obvious manner so that audiences don’t miss them.
“If you are saying this food is good or bad, that this medicine is good, you must be qualified and disclose that you are qualified to say that. Otherwise, it can be majorly misleading,” Rohit Kumar Singh, secretary to the Indian government’s department of consumer affairs, has told Business Standard in an interview.
The move follows the guidelines issued by the consumer affairs department for social media influencers and celebrities involved in such endorsements.
Many Indians have reported being duped by such endorsements, especially in matters related to finance, events, and cryptocurrencies.
Popular Indian influencers are not qualified
India’s social media influencer market stood at $155.6 million in 2022, Business Standard reported.
A considerable segment of this is of those giving out health and wellness advice. Increased health-consciousness after the covid-19 pandemic has catalyzed the market for instant advice on health, wellness, and fitness on social media.
Celebrities such as Mrunal Thakur, Rashmi Desai, and Ayush Mehra have fairly high engagement rates on Instagram in this context but are not necessarily qualified for such endorsements.
“It is directly related to people’s health,” Singh said. “First you try to educate them. These are mostly young people and it is a question of revenues for them. We do not want to interfere with the model. What we are wary of is the consumer being taken for a ride.”
The West is trying to cut China out of rare earths—and China is noticing
China is facing heated competition as the US, Europe, Australia, and Japan collaborate on rare earths
Even as Chinese rare earth players cement their footholds in international markets, other countries are slowly making progress in rebuilding their rare earth supply chains. They have a singular purpose: to loosen China’s grip on these precious metals.
In striking a multitude of recent deals, Western nations and their allies trying to rely less on China for purified rare earths, which go into everything from iPhones to EVs to semiconductors. This marks a huge realignment in trade—one that goes by names like “friendshoring” and “nearshoring.”
These shifts have occurred so rapidly that they’ve wrongfooted Beijing. “China has not adapted to the current new global rare earth competition pattern,” Dai Tao, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, wrote in a recent paper.
The US and Europe are striking rare earth deals without China
One example of this realignment is a two-year-old collaboration between US and European rare earth firms. The project involves processing monazite sands in Utah to produce rare earth carbonates, then shipping them to Estonia for processing. In another transatlantic project, rare earth ores mined in Canada will undergo preliminary processing there, then travel to Norway for further refining.
Japan’s strategic and longstanding relationship with Lynas, which it rescued from collapse in 2016, has paid off in spades: Its rare earth dependence on China has fallen from over 90% of imports to 58% within a decade, according to UN Comtrade data. China is defending its rare earths dominance with sheer scale
Still, China continues to enjoy significant advantages given the breadth of its industry. Apart from mining its own raw materials, China dominates every other step in the long industrial chain of producing high-purity rare earths. The economies of scale are vast, particularly in a country where labor is cheap. “It’s going to be very difficult to compete with the Chinese cost structure,” said John Ormerod, the principal and founder of JOC, a consultancy that specializes in the rare earth magnet industry.
One solution for the West is to improve and develop technologies that require fewer rare earths, to better shrink any dependence on China. For example, Tesla recently announced that its next-generation motors will use rare earths-free magnets, although technical details are sparse.
Some industry analysts believe that Tesla’s move will have minimal effect on the market for neodymium and dysprosium, the key rare earths in the most common EV magnets. But Stan Trout, founder of the rare earths and magnetic materials consultancy Spontaneous Materials, thinks that Tesla’s decision can lead to ripple effects.
“Reducing demand for neodymium is actually a very powerful thing because you don’t have to process as much ore,” he said. “A small reduction...just takes a bit of the froth out of the market place, and so that’s very helpful. Will Tesla’s do that? I can’t answer that yet.”
But at the same time, other countries will have to accept a reality: that diversifying their rare earth supply chains away from China will come with higher costs. Automakers, for example, may have to pay a premium for non-Chinese sourced rare earth magnets, passing those costs onto consumers through a higher sticker price on their cars.
China’s rare earth industry has vulnerabilities too
Another possibility, though, is that China’s rare earths monopoly becomes a victim of its own success.
China’s combination of a ban on foreign investments in rare earths; bans and restrictions on the export of rare earths technology; and tax rules that distort the market and increase import dependence on rare earth raw materials are “unsustainable and cannot succeed,” said Thomas Krümmer, author of The Rare Earth Observer newsletter and director of the Singapore-based firm Ginger International Trade and Investment .
“[T]he current stance of China in terms of rare earths will eventually destroy China’s monopoly... Sixty years of painstaking development work down the drain.”
This is the third article in a three-part series.
Part I: China’s rare earths industry has a raw materials problem
Part II: China is on a global hunt for rare earths
Turkey: A 100-year-old democracy with ups and downs
Burak Ünveren
In 2023, the Turkish republic will celebrate its 100th birthday with an election that could usher in a new turning point in its history.
https://p.dw.com/p/4KYVH
The Republic of Turkey was founded 100 years ago. Since then, the country has experienced a transformation from a single-party into a multi-party system, a military coup in 1960, violence on its streets for almost a decade in the 70s, followed by another coup and many unstable coalition governments in the 90s, and an Islamist rise to power in 2002.
Amid all these minor and major setbacks, the Turkish state, built on Western ideals such as democracy, equality, the rule of law and secularism, has survived and will celebrate its centenary year next year.
How resilient are Turkey's democratic institutions, though, as it turns 100? 'One of the most disappointing examples'
Under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has increasingly turned its face from the West toward the East. It has associated itself more with Islamic values, made new friends and allies in the Arab world and built up its overseas military involvement, including in Somalia and Qatar, where Turkey's presence has been welcome.
These developments have not made all Turks happy, however, as all this has been accompanied by rising authoritarianism.
Sinem Adar, an expert on Turkey at the Center for Applied Turkey Studies (CATS) in Berlin, takes a negative view of the trajectory taken by the country under Erdogan. "Turkey today is a prime example of increasing authoritarian practices", she observes. "Since the late 2000s, the country has steadily moved away from the rule of law and effective separation of powers."
Sinem Adar sees democratic principles in danger in Turkey
Image: DW
And Adar is especially frustrated by the turn things have taken after what seemed like auspicious conditions for progress. "Given the country's almost seven decades of experience with competitive multi-party elections and its integration into the Western institutional architecture, the demise of Turkish democracy is arguably one of the most disappointing examples of a global trend," she says. Islam gaining political power
One of the founding values of the republic was secularism, or laicism, a concept based on the French model of strict separation between state and religion. The Ottoman Caliphate was abolished in 1924, less than a year after the establishment of the republic. Instead, the Diyanet, the so-called Directorate of Religious Affairs, was founded to give the state more control over the political influence of Islam.
It is fair to argue now, however, that religion plays a far greater political role in Turkey today than 20 years ago thanks to Erdogan's policies and discourse.
Erdogan with Diyanet President Ali Erbas: Religion and politics remain entwined in Turkey despite its avowed 'laicism'
Image: Murad Sezer/REUTERS
Adar underlines that there has always been a "thin line between religion and politics in Turkey" since the establishment of the republic. But, she says, the past 20 years of rule by Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) have brought about a significant difference in terms of "the breadth and depth of the state-sponsored penetration of religion into social life." One can speak of a "clear trend of gradual expansion of Islam into public life, especially in the last decade," Adar says.
The Diyanet has been turned into a gigantic political actor under the AKP's rule, as Adar explains.
"The Diyanet has gained more power than ever with mounting political weight and access to ever-increasing resources. Especially after the failed coup attempt in 2016, it has assumed a key role in the daily reproduction of the narrative that Turkey's ruling elites under the leadership of Erdogan embody the people's will and defend the nation's authentic and national values, as well as the state's territorial integrity," she says.
Could Erdogan lose?
Turks will go to the ballot box on June 18, 2023, to pick their next president. Some polls suggest that Erdogan, whose policies do not go unquestioned by all, could possibly lose if the opposition manages to run against him with a single candidate.
That is still up in the air, however. The so-called Table of Six, which consists of six opposition parties who have joined forces, has not even announced its candidate or candidates yet. The Table of Six wants a return to the parliamentary system and limits to be placed the powers of the president, which were greatly increased after Erdogan pushed through significant constitutional changes back in 2018.
The so-called Table of Six is seeking to dislodge Erdogan
Image: DHA
Contrary to widespread popular belief, including in Turkey itself, the country still has functioning democratic institutions that ensure free and fair elections to a certain extent. The year 2019 provided a glimmer of hope for those who would like to see a different government: In local elections, opposition candidates won against AKP candidates in Turkey's two largest cities, Istanbul and Ankara.
This proves that Turkey still has functioning democratic institutions and that elections actually can actually be won against the ruling power, unlike in other authoritarian regimes such as Russia.
But does the opposition really have a chance of winning the election in June? According to Adar, it now has an opportunity to present itself as a credible and powerful alternative to the ruling powers, particularly against the backdrop of "growing societal anger and despair in the face of a governance crisis, coupled with a deepening economic crisis and worsening elite coherency within Turkey's ruling alliance."
But for a transition of power to take place, it is vital that the elections are held fairly. "In order to win an election, [the oppostion first needs] to ensure the [...] security of the ballot box," Adar says.
And what if Erdogan loses?
But what path will Turkey choose if power does change hands?
In light of Turkey's current trajectory, it can be argued that the European future of the country is in jeopardy.
2023 is destined to be a critical year both for Turkey and Turkey-EU relations, according to Cigdem Nas, the secretary-general of the Economic Development Foundation in Istanbul, the leading think tank dedicated to Turkish-EU relations.
"If the opposition wins, they will mostly concentrate on a return to the parliamentary regime, and this process will also entail a democratization agenda. Under such a scenario, we may expect a revitalization of Turkey's EU perspective," she says.
Cigdem Nas sees the chance of a revitalization of Turkey's EU perspective if the opposition wins
Image: Privat
Nas emphasizes that a possible return of the EU reform agenda in the post-election period "may bring about an acceleration of Turkey-EU relations by way of the customs union modernization, and greater coordination in trade, energy, foreign policy, security and migration policies."
One should however be realistic, she says: "In the absence of any significant change in Turkey's EU reform agenda, efforts to shift the nature of the relations from a candidacy perspective to an interest-based partnership will become more apparent." Turkey remains important
"Despite the freeze of its EU membership talks, Turkey is still in the wider European architecture as a critical actor for European security," Nas says.
Turkey also constitutes the southeastern flank of NATO and has the second-largest army within the alliance, which makes the country an indispensable security provider. Especially under the current circumstances, where NATO wants maximum unity to counter potential aggressors such as Russia and China, no one in the alliance would desire the loss of such an important member.
Since there is no end in sight to Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine, the role of Ankara as a mediator, in which it has already scored some successes, is also to be expected to bear a lot of diplomatic fruit for Turkey in the coming year.
Edited by: Timothy Jones
250M more people could face extreme poverty amid rise in inequality: Oxfam official
World will witness ‘the most profound collapse of humanity into extreme poverty and suffering in memory’ if no action is taken, charity warns
Leila Nezirevic |10.04.2023 -
LONDON
As the gap between the rich and poor around the globe is spiraling out of control, it is affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people who are being pushed into extreme poverty.
In the last two and a half decades, there had been a steady decline in extreme poverty, but progress “has now ground to a halt,” according to an expert.
Government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in poorer countries “have undermined hard-won gains in the fight against poverty,” Anthony Kamande, Oxfam’s global inequality research coordinator, told Anadolu.
For the first time in 25 years, extreme wealth and extreme poverty “have sharply increased simultaneously,” he said.
The pandemic pushed 90 million people into extreme poverty in 2020, an increase of 12% compared to 2019, said the researcher.
In 2022, nearly 670 million people were estimated to be living in extreme poverty, out of which over 410 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa alone, said Kamande.
He estimated that those inflicted by poverty live on “less than $2.15 per day.”
“The result of this is that we are experiencing preventable deaths and massive suffering, hunger is on the rise, human development is declining, and we are far off from achieving the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), including one on ending extreme hunger by 2030,” he added.
While the wealthiest people and companies continue to thrive, recent crises have caused “huge setbacks in the fight against poverty,” said Kamande.“People are losing jobs in droves, wages are on the decline, the quality of jobs is deteriorating and governments, especially in poorer countries, are facing a fiscal squeeze, all of which are threatening the lives and livelihoods of the world’s poorest people,” he added.
Oxfam warned that on top of the economic crisis caused by COVID-19, skyrocketing food prices and energy costs caused by the war in Ukraine could push a quarter of a billion more people into extreme poverty.
It called for urgent international action, including canceling debt repayments for poorer countries.
Oxfam’s international executive director, Gabriela Bucher, also called for immediate radical action, as without it, “we could be witnessing the most profound collapse of humanity into extreme poverty and suffering in memory.”
‘The winner takes it all’
“The winner-takes-it-all economic model” is massively rewarding for the already rich people, he said, adding wealth is increasingly being transferred from the poor to the rich.
Since 2020, the richest 1% have captured almost two-thirds of all new wealth, which is nearly twice as much money as the bottom 99% of the world’s population, according to Kamande.
He estimated that billionaire fortunes are increasing by $2.7 billion a day, even as inflation outpaces the wages of “at least 1.7 billion workers.”
In 2022, food and energy companies more than doubled their profits, paying out $257 billion to wealthy shareholders, “while over 800 million people went to bed hungry,” he said.
“Now, in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, it is clear that the world cannot continue on this trajectory,” added Kamande. ‘Unfair’ tax system
“The trickle-down neoliberal economic model” is continuing to “trick” millions into poverty, he argued. Oxfam urged that the wealthiest individuals and companies that profit from COVID-19 and the Ukraine war crisis must pay more taxes.
The charity also called on the Group of 20 to assign $100 billion of an existing austerity fund for poor countries to shield the poorest from inflation through subsidies and cutting taxes on goods and services.
“The rich are increasingly benefitting from a massive tax cut, but the poor are being saddled with myriads of indirect taxes, including sales taxes such as the value added to the tax,” said Kamande.
Lack of investment in deprived sectors continues to hamper poverty eradication as hundreds of millions of people “cannot get even the most basic of healthcare services” or quality education that has become “a preserve of the rich,” he added.
“Tied to the neoliberal economic policies is the issue of market liberalization that has impacted poor people in poorer countries negatively,” Kamande said.
Making the rich pay their “fair share of taxes” would go a long way in raising resources for tackling poverty and inequality.
“For example, a progressive annual wealth tax at 2%, 3%, and 5% on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires would raise $1.7 trillion annually.
“This would be enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty. In addition, it could fill the funding gap for emergency UN humanitarian appeals and fund a global plan to end hunger,” Kamande said.
He further said that governments should strengthen deprived sectors such as health care, education, social protection, and small-holder farming.
Rich countries should provide financing for climate mitigation and adaptation to poorer countries, he added.
As nations are falling into bankruptcy, debt payments “are ballooning out of control.”
About 60% of low-income countries are at a high level of debt distress, according to Kamande.
“This is unsustainable if we are to end poverty and suffering,” and that is why these countries urgently need “debt cancellation and restructuring to free up resources that could be spent to help struggling citizens,” he said. ‘Catastrophic consequences’
Kamande warned that failure to act could have “catastrophic consequences.”
If governments do not take immediate action, the world will continue to see a massive transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor, while poverty, hunger, and suffering will increase dramatically, he said.
As climate change takes a heavy toll, “our planet will face an existential threat” if no action is taken, he said, adding that the “fragile” democracies and politics will also be at risk of elite capture, while conflicts will be exacerbated as communities and groups fight each other to access scarce resources.
Corruption and theft of public resources “will be normalized,” and as a consequence, the world is likely to experience “more preventable deaths such as maternal deaths,” Kamande argued.
“Even the slightest shock will leave behind a toll of destruction.”
My family survived the Deir Yassin massacre. 75 years later, we still demand justice.
S.K | DOP -
The terraced stone homes of Deir Yassin stand seemingly undisturbed behind the locked gates of the Kfar Shaul psychiatric hospital compound. Virtually suspended in time and inaccessible to the public, it’s a fitting metaphor for the sustained concealment of the atrocities committed there.
Seventy-five years ago today, April 9, the quiet stonecutter village of Deir Yassin became the site of the massacre that continues to reverberate with chilling significance for the Palestinian people.
On my first visit to Deir Yassin in 1998 — on the massacre’s 50th anniversary — I walked down its quarry-studded pathways and admired the flowering prickly cactus plants leading to my grandmother’s family home. Her words still echo in my head, each syllable striking my mind like the knives that spilled the blood of the villagers.
“Never forget what happened here. Inscribe it in stone. Engrave it in your heart forever,” she had pleaded to me, tapping her fingers against her chest.
For many Nakba survivors, the most minute details of the atrocities they witnessed remain fresh in their memories as though they happened yesterday. My grandmother recalled the stench of bloodied corpses, and the gruesome sight of her grandfather’s contorted, bullet-riddled body strewn on their home’s front steps.
PHOTO OF THE AUTHOR’S GRANDMOTHER, FATIMA ASAD, SEEING HER FAMILY HOME IN DEIR YASSIN BEHIND THE FENCE. EVEN THOUGH IT WASN’T THE FIRST TIME SHE WAS SEEING HER HOME AFTER THE MASSACRE, THIS PHOTO CAPTURED THE SHOCK AND HEARTACHE WRITTEN ON HER FACE UPON SEEING OCCUPANTS ON THE BALCONY OF HER HOME. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DINA ELMUTI)
PHOTO OF THE AUTHOR’S LAST VISIT TO DEIR YASSIN WITH HER LATE GRANDMOTHER, FATIMA ASAD, WHO IS POINTING TO HER FAMILY HOME FROM BEHIND A FENCE. THEY WERE NOT ALLOWED ACCESS INTO THE VILLAGE TO SEE IT UP CLOSE. PHOTO TAKEN IN 2015. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DINA ELMUTI)
The trauma that our elders experienced during the Nakba inhabits our beings and becomes a part of us. Generations later, it lances through our bodies and leaves a soul wound. The intergenerational transmission of trauma in the grandchildren of Nakba survivors is a wordless story.
No words of any human language can ever fully describe the atrocities committed in Deir Yassin, or any of Israel’s successive massacres. It’s a unique torment that flashes through our veins with severity, a waking nightmare that settles on our chests, grips our throats, and opens our mouths to soundless cries.
When my grandmother died, I felt the immense grief of losing my first storyteller. It became an urgent duty to keep the Nakba narratives alive after the remaining survivors die, and the detailed horrors fade from living memory.
My first visit to Deir Yassin drove me to explore the historical memory surrounding the Nakba, and has continued to underscore my entire life as a trauma social worker and storyteller.
PHOTO OF THE AUTHOR’S LATE GREAT GRANDMOTHER, AZIZA ASAD (LEFT), AND HER MOTHER (RIGHT), OUTSIDE THEIR FAMILY HOME IN DEIR YASSIN. PHOTO TAKEN IN 1982. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DINA ELMUTI)
Targets for elimination
On the morning of April 9, 1948, the village of Deir Yassin felt the breath of death. By mid-afternoon, the streets were a bloody slaughterhouse and graveyard of unspeakable horrors. Zionist forces beat, stabbed, lined up and executed villagers — firing squad-style. Their violence and rage expanded beyond the execution of captive villagers. Surviving villagers, like my great uncle Dawud, who was 17 years-old at the time of the massacre, affirmed that Zionist forces terrorized, robbed, raped, brutalized, and blasted villagers with hand grenades. They crushed, bayoneted, and eviscerated the abdomens of pregnant women while they were still alive, and maimed and beheaded children in front of their own parents.
Everyone, from the unborn and nursing infants to the elderly, was a target for elimination.
Nearly two-thirds of the massacred consisted of children, women, and elderly men above the age of 60. Zionist thugs hauled several bodies to the village stone quarry where they buried and burned them. Unnerved by the barbarities, they ate with gusto next to charred corpses.
BULLET-PIERCED CACTUS PLANTS OUTSIDE DEIR YASSIN (PHOTO COURTESY OF DINA ELMUTI)
The death toll of the massacre fell between 110 and 140 villagers, though Irgun commanders exaggerated the toll to 254 to escalate the terror and trigger the mass expulsion of Palestinians from neighboring towns and villages.
Today, Deir Yassin serves as the DNA of our current Nakba, remaining a haunting emblem of erasure and the ongoing systematic dispossession and forced displacement of Palestinians. Since then, the denialism and propagated myths at the core of the Zionist ideology have allowed for the state-sanctioned violence committed against Palestinians.
Incapacity to forget
The deliberate destruction of memory is intrinsic to the genocidal process, but it’s impossible to forget the unforgettable. Or something that has never actually ended. The Nakba did not begin or end in 1948. It remains an ongoing catastrophe, trauma upon trauma compounded.
When it comes to forgetting such catastrophes, one borders on immorality, cruelty, or the reprehensible. To deny the suffering of victims is to deny the facts, history, and memory itself. For anyone in the world, this response would approach the incomprehensible and the unthinkable.
For everyone except the Palestinian people.
Forgetting, or rather denying, that massacres ever occurred has been reprehensibly common in the discourse surrounding the Nakba. References to the memory of survivors are often met with defiance and denial, their testimonies fraught with contention and controversy. These testimonies, however, continue to disrupt a discourse of veiled cruelty, enabling the enduring struggle against the imposition of silence and forgetting.
PHOTO OF THE AUTHOR’S LATE GRANDMOTHER, FATIMA ASAD, TAKEN AT THE 50TH COMMEMORATION OF THE MASSACRE IN DEIR YASSIN. THIS WAS FROM THE AUTHOR’S FIRST VISIT TO DEIR YASSIN IN 1998. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DINA ELMUTI)
Memories that threaten and shatter the integrity of a state are difficult to reconcile with its present trajectory and image, which is why Zionists continue to defame and label everything as antisemitic. Zionists portray themselves as the victims, claiming their suffering and existential threat through deliberate acts of memory manipulation and willful distortion, thereby reducing their own culpability.
This is a psychic defense or psychological pathology. The psychiatric hospital expanded all over the blood and bones of family homes in Deir Yassin in itself symbolizes a nation’s suppressed subconscious past of denial. A nation reborn from the ashes of the Palestinian people.
PHOTO OF FAMILY MEMBER HOLDING THE IRON KEY TO THEIR HOME IN DEIR YASSIN, DURING THE AUTHOR’S LAST VISIT TO JERUSALEM IN 2011. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DINA ELMUTI)
A duty to remember
The fire was extinguished from Deir Yassin 75 years ago, leaving in its wake a charred impression, the stains of which no amount of cleansing or denial could ever eliminate. The scale of the import of the systematic assaults committed by Zionists remains largely unrecognized, and generations of the architects that planned the Nakba and the butchers carried it out continue to go to their graves without repentance.
But the Palestinian people are not desperate for a semblance of recognition or fake remorse. Our memories, narratives, and lives exist. They have always existed. The onus to protect and preserve our memories and collective narrative, in the face of every attempt to erase them, will remain ours to carry.
We will continue to shatter the façade of deliberate distortions and disrupt the arrogant silence surrounding the Nakba. We will continue to resist, narrate, and prevent its memory from calcifying into the erased and forgotten.
Like the bullet-riddled cactus plants that bear the scars of Deir Yassin – blooming out of carnage and destruction – we will remain a thorn in the side of the occupation. We will continue to name the victims and tell the stories of those who struggle for their lives and dignity with determination, transmuting trauma into steadfastness.
We inherited the duty to never forget what happened, to inscribe it in our memories forever.
PHOTO OF THE AUTHOR’S GRANDMOTHER, FATIMA ASAD, SEEING HER FAMILY HOME IN DEIR YASSIN BEHIND THE FENCE. EVEN THOUGH IT WASN’T THE FIRST TIME SHE WAS SEEING HER HOME AFTER THE MASSACRE, THIS PHOTO CAPTURED THE SHOCK AND HEARTACHE WRITTEN ON HER FACE UPON SEEING OCCUPANTS ON THE BALCONY OF HER HOME. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DINA ELMUTI)
PHOTO OF THE AUTHOR’S LAST VISIT TO DEIR YASSIN WITH HER LATE GRANDMOTHER, FATIMA ASAD, WHO IS POINTING TO HER FAMILY HOME FROM BEHIND A FENCE. THEY WERE NOT ALLOWED ACCESS INTO THE VILLAGE TO SEE IT UP CLOSE. PHOTO TAKEN IN 2015. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DINA ELMUTI)
BULLET-PIERCED CACTUS PLANTS OUTSIDE DEIR YASSIN (PHOTO COURTESY OF DINA ELMUTI)
